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Thank You, Massport

Today’s Massport officials are far different from those whom our parents who lived in our community during the 1960’s had to contend with. Back in the 1960’s, Massport was an agency that just took what it wanted, regardless of the impact on the community. One only has to look back at the neighborhood of Neptune Road in East Boston that was completely destroyed in the late 1960’s by Massport’s actions to expand Logan Intertnational Airport.

However, over the years Massport has grown into a much better neighbor. This is not to say that they still do not have to be watched, but overall they continue to try to make our communities better places in which to live and raise our families.

This year, Massport gave more than $450,000 to communities that have been impacted by their operations for youth summer employment. In Revere, this meant that $41,000 was given to fund 43 jobs; in East Boston, more than $100,000 was given to fund 65 jobs; and in Charlestown, more than $31,000 was given to fund 20 youth jobs.

The importance of this is that for almost 130 youths, their summer was spent doing a job, rather than hanging out on a corner. According to experts, youths who have no supervision during long periods of time will end up getting into trouble with the law. While these 128 summer jobs may be only a small a drop in the teenage work pool, they represent am opportunity for youths in our neighborhoods for which we are grateful to Massport.

Wolf Warren

I am sure this comforts all those that were inpacted by the Growth of Logan

drensber

Massport has built a couple of really beautiful parks in East Boston as compensation for some of the things that they’ve taken away from the community in the past. It seems like they should be required to do something similar to compensate for the noise pollution that they’ve introduced to Revere during the past century. I wonder if our casino-happy “leaders” would even be interested in something like that if the opportunity were there?